Baptists Expect Divided But Calmer Gathering

Beginning Tuesday, about 24,000 Southern Baptists -- 1,000 from Florida -- will hold their annual gathering at an aptly named site: Cervantes Convention Center in St. Louis.

Cervantes, of course, wrote the legendary Don Quixote. And like that fictional knight, Southern Baptists for years have been tilting at theological windmills.

Moderates, lambasted as liberals by the other side, accuse their opponents of hijacking the denomination, packing key boards with doctrinal allies.

Conservatives, branded fundamentalists by moderates, rejoin that they simply have learned the methods used to liberalize the convention for decades. It sounds like a recipe for a split, and some have predicted one for years. Others say the basic religious orthodoxy of the 14.5 million Southern Baptists and their unorthodox methods probably will keep them together.

''Anyone who tries to predict what Baptists will do has taken leave of his senses,'' said James Dunn, head of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs in Washington.

''The only thing they agree on is to disagree,'' he said.

Year by year, the conservatives have gotten their people into key positions, including the presidency. They say they are close to their goal of controlling the vast network of denominational schools, printing houses, missions and media.

''The conservative opinion is proving to be the dominant one,'' the Rev. Paige Patterson said with evident satisfaction. ''Of course, we've said it was all along.''

Other Southern Baptists talk in terms of despair.

''We've been polarized for eight years, and it's a tragedy,'' said the Rev. W. Henry Crouch, president of a new moderate alliance. ''The convention has always allowed for diversity. Now the fundamentalists are demanding conformity. If you don't agree, you're out.''

''A marriage that is broken down irretrievably,'' is how scholar E. Glenn Hinson put it in a recent speech at Catholic University in Washington. ''It would be more Christian . . . if we got a divorce.''

The conflict may puzzle other Christians, because a liberal Southern Baptist is a conservative in most other denominations. Baptists historically have stressed the factual accuracy of the Bible and the claim that God inspired its writers.

The Baptists also have stood firm for ''soul competency'' -- the ability of everyone to understand religion for himself rather than let a church dictate what to believe. Much of the Southern Baptist Convention is built on autonomy, with each of the 36,000 churches a fiercely independent corporation.

But the churches also chip in to support a central corporation: the Executive Committee in Nashville, which oversees missions, education, television and other cooperative work. There also are a pension fund, six seminaries, a social action agency and other operations, many of which run through millions of dollars annually.

In recent decades the balance has tilted toward freedom, with more flexible forms of Bible criticism taught in the seminaries. The graduates have then become pastors and missionaries, threatening to weaken the faith, the conservatives charge.

In the late 1970s, the rightists organized. Their first victory was the first election of Memphis pastor Adrian Rogers to the presidency in 1979.

Since then a conservative has been elected each year, including Rogers' re-election in 1986.

The presidents, in turn, have been busily placing soul mates on Southern Baptist agencies, especially the Committee on Committees. That group is vital because it appoints members to the other 24 national programs.

Their first clear-cut victory was the Home Mission Board, which last year became more than half conservative.

And last month Rogers announced a new Committee on Committees that is nearly two-thirds conservative.

Patterson, one of the leading strategists, said the drive is ahead of schedule. But because some Southern Baptist boards have rotating memberships, he keeps his original prediction of victory by 1989. ''We've figured on at least two years for mistakes,'' he says.

The moderates, thrown on the defensive, have formed shifting caucuses under varying names. One of the most ominous lately has been the Southern Baptist Alliance.

The alliance was formed in March with 20 members and now claims 1,000 members in 30 states, though mostly in Georgia and the Carolinas. While denying any plans to secede, they are leaving the possibility open.

Patterson acknowledges that possibly 5,400 Southern Baptists are outspoken moderates. But if there is a falling away, he believes it will involve no more than 100 of the 36,000 churches. ''Many pastors would be kept by their churches from pulling out.''

Both sides agree, for better or worse, that the St. Louis convention is likely to be less warlike than those of the past two years. For one thing, they are awaiting the report of a ''peace committee'' appointed to find a solution.

Committee members are tight-lipped about the report's contents, except to say it attempts to give each side something.

So despite the doomsaying, the Southern Baptists likely will muddle through. The conservatives are triumphant; the moderates are retrenching; everyone else wants to return to the Baptist fortes -- preaching, teaching and evangelism.